2 months after I finished the PCT, I realized that I wanted to hike another long trail despite the pain and exhaustion such a journey involves. That’s because the journey offers rewards that make the price of admission to be worth it.

To those that wish they could do such a journey, no explanation is needed as to why one would want to do this. To those who can’t understand and ask “why?”, no explanation can be offered to satisfy them. They will never understand, so it’s often pointless to even try. Some people have a strong desire to explore, to wander, to see and experience what they haven’t before. To deny such feelings and desires, is to live an unhappy life. But those that desire security and safety, to remain in close contact with their limited circle of acquaintances and family, they can never even imagine living such a nomadic life and often criticize those that won’t be content fitting in the round hole that they have prepared. Some square pegs fully embrace their wanderlust for their entire lives, working only to finance their next journey. Others give into societies pressure to comform, living lives that never seem to fully satisfy them. And a few try to balance the two lives and make an effort to embrace their desires at least a few times in their lives by taking a journey of a lifetime such as a long trail thru-hike.

It’s now been almost 3 years since I left the Mexican border on the beginning of my PCT journey in 2009. It was suppose to be the “journey of a lifetime”, satisfying a long held desire I held since college. But, yet again, I’m considering another such journey and those words seemed to have lost some of their meaning. Because this time, I’m going knowing that it wont be the last time. This time, I’m leaving with full knowledge that hiking the CDT too will be in my future. Perhaps in another 3 years.

Though I was aware of the Appalachian Trail's existance, living most of my life on the west coast, meant I had no contact with it and never gave it any real thought. That changed in the late 1990's when I was stuck in Newark's airport awaiting a connection to New Hamphire for business. At the airport bookstore, I picked up a copy of Bill Byrson's book "A Walk in the Woods" about his humerous attempt to hike the AT. That book opened my eyes to the possibility of thru-hiking a long trail rather then doing it as a series of small section hikes. Though my immediate thoughts were of a future PCT thru-hike as I was more familiar with that trail and had been fascinated with hiking parts of it. But that book also planted a seed of desire to hike the AT one day that has grown with time. Now with a PCT thru-hike under my belt, the AT just seems like the natural next step. But the seed for a future CDT hike has already been planted.

The Appalachian Trail (A.T.) is a more than 2,175-mile long footpath stretching through 14 eastern states from Maine to Georgia. Conceived in 1921 and first completed in 1937, it traverses the wild, scenic, wooded, pastoral, and culturally significant lands of the Appalachian Mountains.